Breeding Progress of Winter Rye ( Secale cereale ) in Poland: Where Do We Stand?

Rye ( Secale cereale L.) is cultivated for its grain and used as a cover crop or fodder. It is grown throughout northern and eastern Europe, as well as in Russia. There is considerable interest in modelling genetic and nongenetic trends in the literature. In the present study, genetic and nongenetic trends for yield and brown rust resistance were estimated in Polish winter rye postregistration trials conducted between 2000 and 2024 By using mixed models with regression components, it was shown that the annual overall yield trend was 59 kg/ha and the annual overall brown rust trend was −0.01. The genetic and nongenetic yield trends were 57 and −4 kg/ha per year, respectively. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that genetic trends were significant, while nongenetic trends were not, for both hybrids and population varieties. It was also concluded that hybrid yields in Polish postregistration trials are increasing four times faster than yields of population varieties. For brown rust, the respective trends were 0.03 and −0.05. Furthermore, both genetic and nongenetic trends were significant for hybrids, whereas for population varieties, only the nongenetic trend was significant. Finally, this study found that the mean generalized stability variances for the two groups of varieties tested in the Polish postregistration trials differed significantly.